


akela

by AllegoriesInMediasRes



Series: Ramayana fics [20]
Category: Ramayana - Valmiki
Genre: Canon Compliant, Deathbeds, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, Missing Scene, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 20:31:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17168897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes
Summary: Urmila is the only child of Ayodhya present at Dashrath’s bedside.akela (Hindi): alone





	akela

Urmila is the only child of Ayodhya present at Dashrath’s bedside.

Two of his sons are in the forest, and the other two in his most hated wife’s kingdom. One daughter-in-law in the forest, and the other two with their husbands on state business. Only Urmila is there to hear him narrate the tale of Shravan Kumar, to clasp Kausalya’s and Sumitra’s cold, shaking hands with her own.

“Karma bites back for -- for all of us in the end,” he says in between heaving coughs. “That sin attaches itself to my soul as it should -- but oh, my daughter, how I wish you did not have to pay the price for it too.”

What does one offer to a dying king? Absolution? Comfort? Philosophy? Urmila should be able to provide that last one in spades, being Janak’s daughter, but all attempts at speech die on her tongue when she can still see the saffron of her sister and her husband departing. Her soul and her heart, riven from her for fourteen years in the blink of a moment.

Dashrath is too lost in his own guilt to notice her silence and misinterpret it as blame, for which Urmila is grateful. “Lakshman hates me. My own son despises me, for my weakness, and how I wish he had fired that arrow into my heart, when he first heard the news, and was ready to do so!”

To this at least, Urmila knows how to respond. “He does not hate you, my lord.” She leans forward and brushes a hand over his brow, beading with sweat. “He loves his brother, and it is to your credit that you inspired such loyalty in one son to another. He is a firebrand who merely needs the calming influence of his elders around him, and I am sure that Rama _jijaji_ and Sita _didi_ will be able to do so in your absence.”

“Sita,” Dashrath moans, and his chest heaves with his agony. “I promised your father that I would keep her always in the style of a queen.”

“Wherever her husband is, there she is a queen,” Urmila whispers, and tears threaten her own voice. She would have cast aside everything to serve her sister, as her husband did for his brother, and she remained behind only so that she could take care of his mothers, and his father. Now that man lies dying.

It seems Urmila must always be one to witness the consequences of curses: to see the best and brightest exiled, to witness her father die and hear his deathbed confessions of youth’s mindlessness, to be the only one to hold up two grieving mothers. With a grimness she never knew she possessed but knows she must now cultivate in herself, she recognizes that it will not be long before Yama comes for King Dashrath. Then she may leave, and slip into the dark embrace of sleep, the way she and her sisters would slip into the cool green waters of Mithila’s rivers.


End file.
